


betta than all the rest

by hudders-and-hiddles (LeslieWrites)



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Episode: s07e07 In-Laws, Hiking, Husbands, In-Laws, M/M, Married Life, POV Patrick Brewer, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29574618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeslieWrites/pseuds/hudders-and-hiddles
Summary: Sometimes even David needs to hike it out.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 59
Kudos: 172
Collections: Schitt's Creek Season 7





	betta than all the rest

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SCSeason7](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCSeason7) collection. 



> _Prompt: 7x07 - Marcy or Clint co-owns a lakeside cottage with their siblings, and they invite David and Patrick out to spend a week there with them. At first, everything is great, but David is still learning about his new family and in these close quarters he's bound to encounter weird Brewer vacation traditions, the occasional annoying habit from Marcy or Clint, old inside jokes that make him feel a bit like an outsider, etc.. How does he navigate getting to know the less enjoyable side of his husband's family?_
> 
> This fic is honestly pretty tangentially related to the prompt, but c'est la vie. Thanks to my beta, [Claire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cromarty/pseuds/cromarty), for listening to me stress about this one all the way up until the last possible second I could post it.

“Going somewhere?” Patrick asks as he watches his husband tie up the laces on his hi-top. 

“Uh, yeah, I thought I’d go for a hike.” 

“Sure.” He chuckles. “And I was just about to pull on my McQueen boots and head to New York Fashion Week.” 

“That’s in September,” David says without looking up, “And I’m serious.” He pulls the laces into a taut and tidy bow and reaches for his other shoe. 

Even if Patrick had been given a hundred guesses for where David might be going, he wouldn’t have landed anywhere near hiking, and he’s still about 68% sure that David is just fucking with him. “Did I slip and hit my head in the shower this morning? Did _you_? Are we on a prank show?” He makes a show of looking around suspiciously, peering behind the potted plant next to the door and squinting out the front window, before dropping his voice to a solicitous whisper. “Are you in trouble with the law?” 

“You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are.” David stands and smooths the lines of his sweatshirt, the plush black cotton embroidered with delicate white flowers. It’s certainly not a look that screams hiking, but then again when has David ever dressed for function over fashion? It’s one of many utterly ridiculous things that Patrick loves ridiculously about him. 

Still, hiking? He remains unconvinced. 

“I seem to recall that after the first hike I took you on, you insisted it would also be the last because ‘nothing will ever be able to top it, and we should quit while we’re ahead.’” 

The twitch of David’s mouth is so small that Patrick would miss it if he weren’t looking for it, but David presses it almost immediately back into a rigid line. “I stand by that, but maybe I just want to go out and look at things.” 

“Things.” 

“You know, trees and... rocks and—” 

“Marcy,” Dad’s voice floats in through the kitchen window, “do you know where the metal detector went? I thought the boys might want to go beachcombing.” 

Patrick doesn’t hear her response; he’s too busy watching the way the line of his husband’s mouth pinches tighter still. It’s an uncomfortable look, awfully similar to the one he gets when Roland spends too long in the store or when Twyla starts in on another story about a felonious relative. But it’s out of place here, in the middle of their week at the lake, where David has been more easygoing and agreeable than Patrick has ever seen him, aside from maybe after the massage on their wedding day. He’d even skipped out on the opportunity for some sexy alone time (twice!) in favor of them joining Patrick’s parents on an evening walk and a trip to the pharmacy. And now he’s apparently taking himself out on hikes. Patrick had thought that maybe the lake air and the lack of responsibilities had just relaxed him more than usual, but the pinch of his mouth tells a different story, and Patrick gets the sick, sinking feeling that there’s something he’s missed. 

“Are you coming or not?” David asks, and he sounds exhausted. Patrick had missed that, too, it seems. 

“Oh, am I actually invited then?” he asks, making it a tease to cover up the worry starting to stir itself up in his stomach. “I was getting the impression this was more of a solo excursion.” 

“Well, it was, but you’re here now, so…” 

“That’s the enthusiasm you want from your husband.” 

He gives David a long look— _are you okay?_ —but David just shrugs and slips out the door, the afternoon sunshine spilling into the silence he leaves in his wake. His long legs carry him quickly out of reach as he beelines for the trees beyond the edge of the gravel drive, and Patrick has no choice but to pull the door closed behind them and hurry to catch up with his husband before the distance swallows him entirely. 

The woods that separate the cottage from its nearest neighbors are thick, cut through with winding paths that generations of Brewers have worn into the undergrowth. Patrick and his cousins spent hours doing their part, every summer when he was a kid, but it’s been years now since he last set foot here. The trail is mostly smooth, but occasionally a gnarled line of roots twists up out of the dirt, and he has to step carefully over it, their last joint hike still sharp in his mind. His shoes are even less suited for hiking this time, but David hadn’t exactly given him time to run upstairs and change. 

Whispers of leaves and puffs of breath and the soft rustle of well-hidden things are their only company as David forges onward, deeper into the woods. Patrick gives him five minutes of quiet before he finally asks, prying the question free from where it’s squeezed itself around his windpipe. “So do you want to tell me what’s going on?” 

David doesn’t even turn around. “Nothing,” he says to the empty path ahead of them, and Patrick shakes his head at his husband’s back. 

“You know that answer would be more convincing if you weren’t practically running away from me while you said it.” 

He can’t see David’s eye roll, but he can feel it all the same. “Nothing,” he insists again, but he slows down just enough for Patrick to reach out and grab his hand, pulling him around to face him. 

“David.” 

“Patrick.” 

They wait each other out, the dense canopy of leaves overhead rippling across the tense silence. Patrick taps his thumb against David’s wedding ring in some kind of unconscious, fidgety Morse code. _Talk to me,_ maybe. Or _SOS._ Or maybe just the anxious drumbeat of his own heart. 

It doesn’t take long before David sighs, his shoulders sagging under the weight of whatever it is that’s happening in his head. “I just need some fresh air, okay?” 

It’s not an answer, not really, but Patrick knows that for all that his husband’s walls are tall and wide, they’re old and worn, too, with tiny cracks that leak more and more as the pressure builds behind them. Once things start to seep through, the cracks will widen and the rest will flow out in time. And this admission, as small as it is, is a fresh crack. So Patrick nods and twists their fingers together, lets the silence settle over them again, and waits for it to grow. 

They continue at a more leisurely pace, hand-in-hand, huffing a little when the trail gets steeper, until they crest a ridge and the woods abruptly end, leaving them with a wide open view of the lake sparkling below. It’s not unlike the place where Patrick had proposed, the trees here at the edge sparse enough for the midday sun to leak through between their leaves, and David turns his face up toward it. He’s beautiful—everywhere, all the time—but especially here, with the golden sun dappling his skin and the tender line of his throat exposed to the lazy breeze off the water. Patrick thinks about wild things that live in woods like these, about the trust inherent in allowing your softest parts to be exposed to the light of day. He knows what he’s being given in moments like this, so he rubs grateful, soothing, safe circles against the back of David’s hand until he finally opens his eyes again and breathes. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I just needed to get out of there.” 

Patrick reaches for the joke because it’s how he knows to ease the way. “The living room decor is that bad, huh?” 

It doesn’t quite get the laugh he wants, but David’s grimace isn’t as deep as usual either. “ _Fish_ is not an appropriate decorating scheme for _any_ room.” 

“Aw, I wish I’d known that sooner. That was going to be your birthday surprise. I got Ronnie to redecorate the bedroom while we’re gone.” 

“I know that’s a joke,” David says, squirming anyway, “but on the off chance it isn’t, I’ll be staying at Stevie’s until you put every single thing back like it was.” 

He tries to pull away, but Patrick only squeezes his hand tighter. “A shame,” he says seriously, though he can feel a smile twitching at the corner of his lips, threatening to give him away. He leans in close, lets his voice go all breathy and low the way he knows David can’t resist. “I was really looking forward to getting my hands on your bass.” 

“Oh my god!” This time David does manage to escape, but he only turns himself in a circle, shaking his head. “Patrick Brewer, did you just make a _fish pun_ at me?” 

“Should I scale it back?” 

“You’re the worst!” He makes it two steps back down the path toward the cottage before Patrick reels him in, laughing to himself and managing not to say that one out loud, and kisses his pouting, affronted, perfect mouth. David does a good job of pretending to resist that, too, until Patrick sucks at the plush cushion of his lower lip, and then he melts into it, draping himself over Patrick’s shoulders and letting him thoroughly atone for his piscine sins. 

“Are you done now?” David asks when he’s been fully made up to, and Patrick smirks because it’s just too easy. 

“Dolphinitely.” 

“Okay, that one’s not even a fish,” he argues, but he’s smiling and that’s all that really matters. 

That’s all that ever matters.

“Do you want to talk about it now?” 

The smile fades away, and David sighs. “It’s nothing,” he says again, but this time it’s definitely a precursor to _something_ , and it only takes a few seconds of Patrick’s hands rubbing up and down his back encouragingly before it spills out. “I’m trying really hard,” he insists, “I am, but... your parents, they’re…” 

All that fear Patrick had managed to bury bursts back to the surface, fresh, green, anxious shoots of it weeding up through the dirt. “Did they— Did they say something to you or—” 

“Oh, no! No! God, sorry, that’s not what—” David stumbles over himself in his haste to reassure him, his hands coming up to squeeze at Patrick’s shoulders, and relief crashes over him so quickly it leaves him dizzy. “They’re great. Well. Mostly. They’re great 99.99999999—” 

“I think I got it.” 

“—percent of the time, but they’re also…” He visibly braces himself, like he’s preparing for Patrick to be angry or upset or... something. It’s hard to know what he’s anticipating when he won’t just spit it out. 

“Also?” 

Patrick waits, and he waits, and David’s face turns a little further in on itself until it looks like it must be painful, and Patrick waits a little more, a little less patiently, until those cracks in the wall finally give. 

“Annoying! Okay?” He throws himself out of Patrick’s arms in a flurry of frantic gestures. “I’m sorry, but they’re driving me crazy. Your dad talks through movies, and your mom does not understand puzzle strategy at _all_ , and a million other ways that they’re both making me lose my mind.” He turns sharply toward the path back to the cottage and then around again after just a few steps, pacing, his shoulders pressing up toward his ears as he worries at his engagement rings. “And they’re always around, and they _constantly_ want to do things! From the minute we wake up until we go to bed again, they want to talk and go places and, I don’t know, kayak or something!” 

Patrick starts to laugh, just a little, a steam valve releasing the pressure built up behind it, some of his worry dissipating into the air around them with each gust of breath. He’d thought that he’d done something, that he’d somehow hurt David without even realizing it, and he’s just so relieved that he has to laugh. But David is still frustrated, still flailing, and looking at him now like he’s on the verge of actually being hurt, so Patrick stifles his laughter back into a smile instead.

“David, I annoy you all the time. For all kinds of reasons. _Your_ parents annoy you. Alexis and Stevie annoy you. How is this any different?”

He shrugs stubbornly. “It just is.”

“It’s not. If they’re bothering you, you can just say so.”

David looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “Absolutely not.”

“Why?” He’s never had a problem expressing an opinion in his life—to Patrick, to his family and friends, to their customers, to strangers in clothing stores—and Patrick has no idea why he would suddenly clam up now. Unless… “You know they like you, right? You don’t have to win them over or something just to—”

“I know that!” he insists. “I _know_ they like me. Your mom calls me every week, and your dad gave me, like, six hugs when we got here. This isn’t about thinking they can’t handle the real me.” He looks offended that Patrick would even suggest it, but it wouldn’t be the first time that David has tried to downplay who he is in order to better fit someone else’s standards. Still, Patrick’s glad that that isn’t the case this time. That doesn’t get him any closer to what it actually _is_ though. 

“David, I still don’t see why that means you can’t tell them no.”

The face he gets in response to that is surely supposed to mean something, but for the life of him, Patrick can’t decipher it. He isn’t a mind reader, as much as he’d like to be sometimes, and he hates that it leaves him feeling so helpless when David is clearly this worked up about something. But he can’t read minds, and he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it, and it feels horribly like he’s failing his husband without even knowing how.

All he can do is watch David twist himself up tighter and admit his failure by asking the question he hates having to ask. 

“What am I missing, David?”

The answer comes in an explosion.

“I’m trying to help you!” 

At his shout, the woods fall quiet around them, the silence magnifying the sound of David’s breath, huffing like he’s just run a marathon while carrying the weight of the whole damn world on his shoulders, about to collapse under the burden of it. Frustrated tears shine at the corners of his eyes, and Patrick does the one thing he does understand, the thing that feels so natural it must be part of his DNA.

“Hey, come here,” he says, shuffling his husband into his arms. He presses a kiss to the curve of David’s neck, reclaiming his place there and David’s place here, and rocks him until his strained breaths start to even out again. It takes a while—longer than Patrick had expected—which just underscores how badly he’s missed whatever it is that’s going on. Because he still doesn’t know what it is David’s been trying to do, but he does know that he’s apparently left him to do it alone.

“What do you mean?” he asks when the tension in David’s shoulders has finally faded away, leaning back to see his beautiful face. “What do you think I need help with?”

He fidgets with the collar of Patrick’s t-shirt, his forehead creasing in a way that tells Patrick he isn’t going to like the answer. “I know you miss them,” David says gently. “I just want to give you time with them.” 

Oh. 

“David,” he says, the sound of it breaking apart on his tongue, and it’s Patrick’s turn to crumple under the weight of the things he has to carry. 

Because he’s the one who had cut his parents out. He’s the one who left, who didn’t return their calls, who didn’t tell them for two whole years that he’d met the love of his god damn life, and he knows how badly it hurt them. He knows, and he hates talking about it because he doesn’t like admitting that he’d failed them, because he’s fucking ashamed, and even though he’s been working on repairing the damage when and where and how he can, it isn’t whole again, not yet. He’s not actually sure that it ever will be. But that’s his burden to bear. It’s his responsibility. Not David’s. 

But of course David would take it on anyway. That’s what he does for the people he loves, even when it hurts him, even when it means letting his in-laws drive him up a fucking wall just so that they can spend more time with their son. Patrick chastises himself for not noticing it sooner. He’s _supposed_ to notice; that’s what he’d signed up for when he’d put five rings on David’s fingers, and now Patrick’s failing him, too.

“My problems with my parents are of my own making,” he says, trying to pull away, but David only traps him there in his arms, refusing to let him escape. His heart pounds against his ribs, a wild beast beating on the bars of its cage. He hates this. He hates that they're talking about it. He hates that they have to. “It’s not your job to fix them.”

“It is a little bit.”

“It’s really not.”

“It is!” David insists. “Patrick, you’re my husband, and I will go on every single trip to the grocery store, and look for rusty nails or whatever you’re supposed to find with a metal detector, and sing fucking kumbaya campfire songs with your parents until I’m hoarse, if it means you get more time with them. I just wanted ten minutes of peace and quiet first so I don’t lose it next time your mom says she wants to get marshmallows to make _suh-mores_.” He pulls away just far enough to look Patrick in the eye. “Your happiness _is_ my job. You’re my _husband_ ,” he says again, like Patrick isn’t taking him seriously, something hot and fierce boiling up under the words. It makes Patrick feel possessed, not by David but by something bigger than them both, part of a whole whose sum is far greater than either of their parts. It’s a breathless kind of belonging he didn’t know existed before they’d said _I do_. 

And as much as he hates that David feels like he has to do this for him, he gets it. Because David’s happiness is his job, too, though it’s a job he apparently hasn’t been very good at this week.

“David,” he says again because no other word can possibly encompass just how much love he has for this man. And then he kisses his husband, deep and long and lingering, because he doesn’t really need any other words at all.

A chime from his pocket and a matching one from David’s eventually pulls them apart. It’s a group text from Mom, of course, wanting to know where they’ve disappeared to and if they want to go into town to play mini-golf after dinner tonight. David’s grimace says exactly how he feels about that idea, but he’s already thumbing out a response and Patrick has to pull the phone out of his hands before he can hit send, ignoring his affronted squawk.

“Do you want to play mini-golf tonight?”

“It’s fine. We can—”

“No,” Patrick says firmly. “I know we _can_ go. I’m asking if you _want_ to go.” David doesn’t say anything, which is all the answer Patrick needs. He sends back a polite no, encouraging his parents to go without them, before tucking both phones into his pockets. “I appreciate what you’re doing, David, I do, but we don’t have to spend _every_ minute with them. It’s our vacation—we picked this week because it’s your _birthday_ —and I want to spend some of it with you. Alone. Maybe even naked.” He gives David a ridiculous little wiggle that makes him light up with a laugh. 

“Yeah, that won’t be happening when we share a bedroom wall with your parents.”

“Who said anything about the bedroom?” Patrick asks, backing him against the nearest tree. His hands slip beneath his husband’s sweatshirt to find soft, bare skin, as he drags his teeth across the stubbled ridge of his jaw.

“You know I don’t do outdoor sex,” David counters, though the way his breath hitches and he scrabbles at Patrick’s shoulders is less convincing. Patrick nips at his earlobe and scratches his blunt fingernails across David’s lower back and swallows the moan that tries to slip out of his mouth. Fuck, he’s missed this, and when he says so, David’s hands fall to his ass, pulling him in, encouraging Patrick to grind their hips together.

Patrick smirks against David’s mouth at the feeling of him growing hard against his hip. “Are you sure you don’t do outdoor sex?”

He drops a hand to the button of David’s jeans, and David gives him one of those mischievous, sideways smiles, the kind that always means Patrick’s going to like whatever comes next. “I might be able to be convinced.”

But before either of them can make a move, both phones chime again in Patrick’s pockets, and everything comes grinding to a halt. He drops his head to David’s shoulder with a frustrated huff.

David’s right—his parents _are_ annoying.

“Come on,” he says, reluctantly backing away from the draw of his husband’s body. “Let’s head back before they come looking for us.” 

They both straighten their clothes, and Patrick offers out a hand to lead David back toward the trail to the house. They only make it a few feet down the path before David asks, “Are you _sure_ you don’t want to go tonight?”

Patrick shakes his head. “As much as I’d enjoy kicking your ass—”

“That’s rude.”

“—I think a quiet night in with my husband sounds even better.” Patrick squeezes David’s hand, relishing the solid resistance of his wedding ring. “Maybe crawl into the hammock for a bit. Test out how well we can both fit in the shower. Head to bed early.”

“That sounds nice.”

A smile tucks itself into the corner of David’s mouth, and Patrick stretches to brush a kiss over it. But the moment is ruined when he trips on a root sticking up out of the dirt and David has to catch him. At least nothing stabs him this time.

“Wow. That was very smooth,” David teases once Patrick gets his feet back under him.

“What can I say,” he offers with a sly grin, “I’m very so _fish_ ticated.”

David groans like he’s dying. “I take it back. I’m going out with your parents while you work whatever this is out of your system.” He stomps off ahead, leaving Patrick to hurry after him.

“Oh, come on, David, I thought you’d be kraken up.” 

“You’re sleeping on the sofa!” 

Patrick’s laughter carries them all the way back to the cottage.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title _is_ a fish pun. You're welcome.
> 
> Thanks to my grandparents for the "inspiration" of the fishy decor at their place at the beach when I was a kid. (Everything was fish-themed. Pillows. Blankets. Art. There were even plastic cups shaped like fish to drink out of.) I don't know why they made that choice over a perhaps less terrifying nautical theme, but it lives in my head forever, and now I'm gifting it to you.


End file.
